Software Development

Mobile compatible, mobile optimized, responsive web design and adaptive web design are all terms that have been used interchangeably, and often incorrectly, to describe websites displayed, and used, on mobile devices.

If you're a business or organization interested in making your website look and behave just as spiffy on a mini-tablet as on your widescreen monitor, there are a few routes you could take to this destination.

The two we discuss here are: (1) adaptive web design and (2) responsive web design.

Newly Released DotNetNuke 7.0 Helps Organizations Save Time, Reduce Costs and Develop Advanced Web Applications

DotNetNuke Corp. (DNN), the company behind the most widely adopted Web Content Management Platform for Microsoft .NET, today announced general availability of its highly anticipated DNN 7.0 release.  DNN 7.0 intends to make creating and managing content-rich websites, social intranets and online communities easier than ever, with benefits for enterprises, web content editors, developers and web designers alike.

SilverStripe Framework and CMS 3.0.3 was released earlier this week. This new version of SilverStripe provides security fixes, bugfixes and a number of minor enhancements since 3.0.2.  As with all 3.0.x releases, it is drop in compatible with 3.0, making upgrading simple.

The list of minor features and enhancements in SilverStripe 3.0.3 includes:

This week, the Joomla! community took a huge step forward toward mobile devices and usability with the release of the latest version of their content management system, Joomla 3.0. The Joomla CMS can now display content on mobile devices as clearly and distinctly as it does on a personal computer or Mac. This innovation makes Joomla the first major CMS that includes the Twitter Bootstrap framework that enables it to be 100 percent mobile-friendly by default. So it is no surprise that the Joomla! project is highlighting Joomla 3 as a CMS that's mobile ready and user friendly.

Public repository of advanced enterprise applications ready for download

LOS ANGELES, CA – Liferay, Inc., provider of the world's leading enterprise-class, open source portal, recently announced the public launch of Liferay Marketplace, offering over 70 enterprise apps and themes developed by Liferay. As part of this launch, Liferay also invites independent software vendors (ISVs) and developers to begin developing apps for Liferay Marketplace. Availability of third party apps created by ISVs will be in the next phase of Liferay Marketplace, which will include additional functionality such as built-in transaction and payments processing.

A couple days ago, the Plone community announced the release of Plone 4.2, the newest version of  their open-source content management system. Plone has nearly 340 core developers and more than 300 solution providers in 57 countries. The project has been actively developed since 2001, is available in more than 40 languages, and has one of the best security track record of any major CMS.

I woke up this morning with a very nice announcement that SilverStripe 3.0 has official been released. As you know, I'm a huge fan of the SilverStripe CMS. Next week, I hope to cover SilverStripe 3 better, but with limited time this Friday you'll just have to be satisfied with a copy of the below press release.

If I'm lucky, I think I might also be able to find a video interview I did last year with SilverStripe's co-founder, Sigurd Magnusson, on the then upcoming SilverStripe 3. I had some video editing format issues that perhaps I'm a little smarter now to overcome. Stay tuned on this "developing story".

The folks over at Netgen (Zagreb, Croatia) wanted me to make mention of the upcoming eZ Publish Summer Camp being held in Bol, Croatia from September 5th to 8th this year. Besides being supportive of almost any conference that promotes CMSs, I thought if my Croatian grandmother was still alive today she would be quite pleased I was talking about Croatia. This three day conference promises to address a number of needs for eZ Publish developers while also giving you a chance to also spend some vacation time in boat and wine country.

Responsive Web Design is without a doubt one of the Web's biggest buzzwords for 2012. The Web is changing fast and even though the importance of CMSs addressing mobile devices was well predicted, I suspect even the tech gurus are surprised at the current growth rate of smartphones. If you don't know it by now, there is a lot of pressure on web designers and site builders to ensure that their client's websites are responding to the changing Internet. A website should look good no matter how it is being displayed, whether that site is being viewed on a desktop, cell phone, tablet, or whatever new device the Ghost of Steve Jobs brings us.

Agility recently announced an update to their Agility CMS which they've labeled under the "May 2012 Release" header. The Agility May 2012 Release offers a complete revamp of their digital asset management system, a whole new system for generating image galleries and thumbnails, and the ability to store and retrieve file and image assets in Agility's new Azure-based content delivery network.

In discussing the redesigned digital asset management system, Agility's Joey Varty blogged about the new features in this release and he highlighted what impressed him most.

You now have sections for Media (which matches the old "Documents" section), a new Image Galleries tab, and a Recycle Bin.

One of my favorite things is the new "Show As Grid" option, giving you thumbnails of all files and images in a folder.  Take a look at the new media selection dialog:
 

You'll notice that the selection dialog looks almost exactly like the Media page.  That's on purpose, of course, and your most recent folder and viewing styles are remembered by the system.